Myron Rolle, now a doctor treating coronavirus patients, draws on football background in crisis

Rolle, 33, is just one member of a massive redeployment effort at the hospital. He spent this past weekend doing 24-hour shifts in neurosurgery Friday and Sunday. Sleepless and speaking by phone between shifts Saturday morning, he describes entire floors efficiently transformed into coronavirus units amid vigilant efforts to protect staff from infection. Starting this week, he will take turns as a volunteer in the surge clinic, triaging patients off the street alongside other volunteers from all corners of the hospital, from fellow surgeons to OBGYN specialists. He also will pitch in on any floor of the hospital that is overwhelmed.

“I’m capable of covering any ICU or the emergency department if necessary,” he says. Asked whether he’s aware of the infection numbers among Boston medical personnel, he replies calmly, “Mmmmm-hmmmmm.”

The volunteerism was ingrained by his parents, Whitney and Beverly. “Your life is not just your own,” they told him. In the 1980s, they immigrated from the Bahamas to New Jersey to give their five kids better educations. Rolle was only in fifth grade when he read Ben Carson’s “Gifted Hands” and decided to become a neurosurgeon. But by the time he finished high school, he was 6-foot-2 with a vertical leap of 36 inches and had more than 50 scholarship offers to play college football. He chose Florida State because it had a medical school on campus and a first-rate coach in Bobby Bowden who swore he wouldn’t let the game interfere with his medical ambitions.